David Owen: Whatever happens on the pitch, Spurs could soon overtake Arsenal at the head of the Premier League profits table

27th August 2013

After a weekend in which none of the Premier League’s big three managed to win, it remains tough to predict who will emerge as the 2013-14 champions. But you don’t need too powerful a crystal ball even at this stage to foresee which club is likely to make the season’s biggest pre-tax profit.

Assuming the soap opera of Gareth Bale’s transfer to Real Madrid (or A.N.Other) reaches a consummation before the window closes, and assuming the fee is anything like the £80 million-plus we keep reading about, then the Welshman’s current club – Tottenham Hotspur – will probably be propelled, no doubt temporarily, to the top of the league’s profitability rankings.

This is just what happened to Everton eight years ago, after they sold a teenage prodigy called Wayne Rooney to Manchester United.